Minnesota Wild Season Grades: Eric Nystrom

Role players are generally tough to grade. They aren't going to show up in any of the standard score sheets, the expectations need to be adjusted, and the details used to measure success are difficult to see. Basically, a good role player is like pornography. You can't define it, but you know it when you see it.

Eric Nystrom was supposed to be part of the defensive forward rebuild. Grit, heart, energy. We got the work ethic, not sure what else we got. Snake bitten? Wrong system? Wrong line mates? No chemistry? The answer to all of them is: maybe. Something just didn't seem to click with Nystrom, despite giving his all almost every night.

How does that translate to a grade? Make the jump to find out.

GRADES

Elise- GRADE: C- Didn't have a great year point-wise, but tried really hard and provided some energy and unexpected momentum at times.

Bryan- GRADE: D+ A team worst -16 on the year, and snake bitten in the goal department for the majority of the games played, Nystrom is one step above Kobasew in finding his role on the team. He never suffered from lack of effort, as he was always out there working his butt off, but the effort just didn't seem to translate to results. He got beat too many times, and was simply not physical enough. Coming in, we expected to see him laying guys out, some solid D, and a handful of goals. We didn't really get any of that.

Nathan- GRADE: F Nystrom took forever to finally score at even strength. That waiting and the sarcastic standing ovation spoke volumes about the impact Nystrom had on the Wild this season. A dramatically underachieving performance, Nystrom's 4 goals, 8 assists, team worst -16 and second worst shooting percentage among forwards of 4.8% make him the worst forward on the team. Many thought he would be a solid 4th line performer this season, but honestly, he would've done a better job from the press box. Time for him to go quietly into the night.

Cumulative GPA: 1.125 D

Final Thought

The disappointment is hard to swallow since the work ethic was there. Probably saved him from more Fs. Sometimes, though, the wheels spin, and there just isn't traction. Great guy, massive dedication, not so much on the results.